# Immune responses to HIV virus immunization - Project 2

> **NIH NIH U19** · SEATTLE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL · 2021 · $596,365

## Abstract

Pre-exposure prophylaxis and treatment can lower HIV infection rates but nearly two million new infections still
occur worldwide each year. A vaccine that can elicit long-lived protective immunity against HIV infection offers
the best prospect to end the AIDS epidemic. While no licensed HIV vaccine is available, the modest efficacy
observed in the RV144 Thai Trial raises hope that a preventive vaccine is possible. To improve on this efficacy,
a deeper understanding of the underlying immune mechanism of vaccine protection is crucial. Our proposed
studies aim at generating critical insights on how to improve anti-HIV T cell function, induce enhanced immune
potency and durability, and develop paths to elicit broad neutralizing antibodies. We are in a unique position to
address these topics with access to an exceptional set of samples from several HIV vaccine trials and well-
characterized HIV infection cohorts. Our proposed studies include assessment of the kinetics of the vaccine-
induced immune response in relevant anatomic compartments (lymph nodes, bone marrow and gut) and
access to cutting edge analytical methods to generate linked datasets that are ideally suited for our proposed,
comprehensive systems biology approach. Our project team is uniquely suited to conduct these studies, as
leaders and well-established collaborators focused on HIV vaccine research, translational immunology,
systems approaches to understand immunological memory, and immune correlates analyses. We expect that
our work will reveal testable hypotheses on the underlying mechanistic interplay between key components of
the innate and adaptive immune response that are responsible for protection against HIV by vaccination.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10198682
- **Project number:** 5U19AI128914-06
- **Recipient organization:** SEATTLE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** Margaret Juliana McElrath
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $596,365
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-07-19 → 2022-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10198682

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10198682, Immune responses to HIV virus immunization - Project 2 (5U19AI128914-06). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10198682. Licensed CC0.

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